


I've Dreamed of You

by Skyeec2



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, dreamwalker au, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 09:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13211187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyeec2/pseuds/Skyeec2
Summary: Person A and Person B keep dreaming about each other and they don’t know why. As it turns out, one of them is a dreamwalker, and their dream interactions weren’t a work of their subconscious.





	I've Dreamed of You

The first time Cloud saw the girl in his dreams, he was six and lonely, someone none of the other kids in Nibelheim wanted to play with because of how he looked and his family status.

The place he had found himself in was a scary, dark hall, metal and artificial lights surrounding him instead of the warm, fire of the hearth he’d fallen asleep in front of and the wooden walls built by his Ma’s family long before the modern day. He didn’t know why he would have dreamed of something like this as all he’d ever known was the home he knew in Nibelheim, but he didn’t think there was anything good here.

He finally noticed the other person in the room with him when he became aware of someone looking at him and turned towards the thin, lumpy mattress against the wall across from him. He froze when his eyes landed on them, limbs locking him in place under their faintly, glowing red gaze.

They didn’t move towards him though, just stayed in place as they stared at him with a curious expression, gaze moving over him quickly as if committing everything about him to memory. He forced himself to relax when they didn’t move to attack him, taking in the other person in the otherwise empty room.

They weren’t much bigger than he was, and their red hair was shorter than Cloud’s own, stopping at the other’s shoulders. He was certain that they were around his age, but that only left him questioning why, exactly, they were both here.

“Did the doctors force you into here?” Cloud blinked at the unexpected words, focusing back on the other’s face. He was surprised to note that the other was a girl, her voice soft and sounding odd to his ears.

“I, don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cloud answered after a moment’s thought, gaze shifting away from the other’s in an awkward manner. “I was with Ma at home, now I’m here.”

“Odd,” she said, shifting towards him a bit. “I have always been in here.”

“Here?” Cloud asked, shocked at her words. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to be stuck here, the cold metal and harsh light seemed like the worse place to be. Even Nibelheim seemed nicer than here and it was situated in the harsh area of the Nibel mountains.

“Yes. Here is all we have ever known,” she answered though there was an odd quality to her voice, as if she were speaking through an ever-increasing fog. Before he could question her though, the room and the girl faded from his view, replaced by soft white fog.

He blinked, and his surroundings changed to his house back in Nibelheim, his Ma looking down at him with a fond exasperation. It seemed that he had dreamed the entire thing and that the girl in the grey, metal room was nothing more than a figment of his imagination.

He lifted himself from the old, worn couch they’d owned since his Ma was his age and gave her a soft smile, following her into the kitchen and putting the weird dream out of his mind.

* * *

 

He didn’t see the girl again until he was twelve, he’d forgotten about her completely until he fell asleep and opened his eyes to see her sitting in the cave he and his Ma had visited in the Nibel Mountain, the one with the mako spring. At the sight of her, sitting at the edge of the pool, the memory of the first dream rushed to the forefront of his mind.

She was staring around the cave with a look of wonder on her face, looking a bit older than the last time he had seen her and dressed in plain but loose clothing. Her hair hadn’t grown much though, remaining short and out of her face; Cloud thought that she looked nice, bathed in the light of the mako fountain.

He banished that thought from his mind, already feeling his face flushing, clearing his throat to alert her to his presence. Things seemed to pass in a blur for a moment as between one second and the next, she was kneeling over him, pushing him back to the ground of the cave.

She released him after a few moments, leaning back as she considered his stunned form. “You are the boy,” she said, head cocked as she spoke. “The one from before.”

“Um, yes,” Cloud answered hesitantly, watching her cautiously in case she attacked him again. “I’m Cloud.”

“Cloud?” She parroted, brow furrowing in confusion. “The things in the sky?”

“I’m named after them, yeah,” he answered, relaxing a bit when her features did, though she didn’t remove herself from him. No, instead she remained in place and turned her attention back to their surroundings.

“What is this place?” She asked, gaze focused on the mako pool. “This is not Deep Ground.”

“We’re in a cave in the mountains outside of Nibelheim,” he informed her, getting a soft, considering noise for his efforts. “That’s a mako pool, there.”

“And these things exist freely up here?”

“Not really; after Shinra set up their Reactors they became pretty rare.”

“I see,” she said, voice distracted as she stared at the fountain. She turned back to him suddenly, gaze fixed on his face. “You will teach me of these things? Of the things on the surface?”

He blinked at her question, confused by it but nodded anyway, seeing no harm in indulging this piece of his imagination. “Sure, I can do that.”

He only saw her pleased smile for a second before his vision fogged over and he woke up back in his bed, alone in his room. He blinked in the pale, grey light of the morning, lifting himself from his mattress and looking around the room. He shrugged to himself writing off the dream once again as a product of his lonely mind before going about his day.

Needless to say, he was shocked when the next night had him back in the cave with the girl, talking to her about whatever she asked about. The same thing happened the next night, and the night after, and every night after for the next few years.

* * *

 

He was fifteen and had just decided to join Shinra when the dreams shifted once again, the setting changing from the cave with the mako pool to a snow-covered field surrounded by trees. The red-haired girl, young woman now, was there as well, looking around the field with an expression of wonderment.

“Hey,” he greeted quietly, not wanting to startle her too much.

“Greetings,” she responded quietly, attention remaining focused on the snow, the trees and finally the sky above them. “This is the surface world?” She asked quietly, eyes moving over the expanse of blue above them. “It is larger than I imagined.”

“Yeah,” he agreed softly, turning his own gaze to the blue that spanned the entirety of the sky above them. “And it only seems to get bigger.”

She turned towards him then, glowing gaze fixating on his form. “How large is the surface?”

“Larger than I could ever explain,” Cloud answered, not knowing what else to say. He’d only ever seen maps of this part of the world, though his Ma not him that there was more out there than the maps said; other lands and continents that were far across the oceans. They seemed too far off though, so Cloud didn’t often believe her.

“That is a poor answer,” she informed him, tone flat and unimpressed.

“It’s what I’ve got,” he shrugged, watching a single cloud drift across the wide expanse of blue.

She huffed but otherwise remained silent, taking in the new surroundings.

Cloud enjoyed these dreams, he felt he was going to miss them when he inevitably out-grew them.

* * *

 

He didn’t have the dreams again for some time, mostly due to the fact that he was more than exhausted after a day of training as a SOLDIER potential. He did have moments where he missed the young woman he had spent his sleeping hours with though, especially while he was surrounded by people who hated him just for the way he looked.

He missed talking to her, she had been abrupt and abrasive, but she’d been nice to speak to. She hadn’t disregarded him because of where he came from and what he looked like, he missed that more than he could say.

So, when he found himself in the middle of the wastes outside of Midgar, sitting on a cliff-face facing the hideous floating city of Midgar with the red-head next to him, he was beyond surprised. The outskirts looked exactly as they had they last time he had seen them, the same hard, dead earth with nothing growing anywhere upon it. It was a depressing sight, he hated it; he wished the he could show the woman anything but what lay before them.

“This is far different than our last meeting place,” she said, gaze moving over the empty space before them. Her gaze stopped at the hulk of grey and smog of Midgar across from them, taking in the horrid sight of the city. “I prefer our previous settings.”

“I do too,” Cloud admitted, turning his eyes away from the wastes to the woman beside him. She was dressed in a training uniform, plain grey with an insignia that Cloud didn’t recognize on the breast of the shirt. “I miss Nibelheim.”

The words slipped out without his realization, soft, quiet and more honest than he would have ever been with anyone else. He would have been embarrassed if this wasn’t a dream and she wasn’t just a figment of his imagination.

“Can you not return?” She asked softly, turning to focus on him in return. Her red-eyes were particularly striking in the desolate wastes surrounding them. He flushed at the attention, ducking away from her as warm surged in his gut, not a reaction he wanted to deal with when living in a dorm with several other boys.

“The people there don’t like me very much,” he said, focusing on the conversion and not the pretty woman sitting next to him. “I’m here to try to make something of myself.”

“You wish to become better than what they think of you.” Her response didn’t sound like a question, it sounded confident and sure, as if she understood exactly what he’s meant.

“Yeah,” he hummed, bringing his knees up to rest his chin on them, crossing his arms around his legs. “I do.”

“That is a commendable wish,” she said after a few moments of silence, shoulder pressing against his for a second. “I hope that you achieve it.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

 

Of all the things Cloud expected after stopping Sephiroth from destroying the world, finding himself in what looked like a large metal lab wasn’t anywhere on the list. He stiffened when he opened his eyes in the room, casting his gaze around to discover any reason why he might have been here instead of his room at Seventh Heaven.

A blur of movement and a sudden weight against him, forced him to the cool metal of the floor beneath him. He grunted at the unexpected action, back throbbing where it had impacted with the floor, forcing his eyes open to glare up at whatever had tackled him. He froze, eyes widening in shock at the sight before him.

It was the red-haired woman he’d been dreaming of for as long as he could remember, the one he’d hadn’t seen in years and had forgotten about completely. After everything that he’d been through, he was starting to think that perhaps she wasn’t a figment of his imagination like he’d assumed she was all this time.

“You are here,” she breathed, voice containing barely-controlled excitement. She was very close to his face, nose brushing against his own as she spoke. “I was certain that you were real.”

“What’s going on?” He asked, confused by her words. How were they even managing to do this? Be in each other’s dreams? “How is this even happening?”

“They did not think that I could do it,” she said, grin widening as she spoke, taking on an almost manic tone. “But I have! Here you are!”

“Where even is here?” He raised his hands, fingers curling around sun-starved skin to ground himself a bit as he tried to wrap his mind around what was happening.

“DEEPGROUND,” she answered, fingers gripping his shirt. “Buried deep under the Shinra building, with the ‘0’ Reactor.” She swallowed, pulling him closer to her as everything started to turn white around them. “You will come, no? Help us escape?”

He could only nod before things faded completely and he blinked to find himself in his bed in his room. He lifted himself from the mattress, striding towards where he had placed his sword the night before.

Seems Shinra had another secret they didn’t want to talk about.


End file.
